Prologue to Part One
The first part of this book groups a collection of essays written for Ulisse (Ulysses), the 1948 journal of the Milan-based international review of culture dedicated to magic and science. The leading essay "Alchemical Hermeticism," which first appeared as the keynote article in a special issue (no. 7), introduces the central themes and motifs underlying Marco Daffi’s vision of a gnostic form of Hermeticism. By appealing to a broader and generally more popular audience than previously addressed on the subject matter, it offers a relatively accessible conduit for the unfamiliar reader to become acquainted with the Baron’s Hermetic worldview. The article begins by framing Hermeticism in its proper context not as a particular style of poetry—Hermetic poetry was popular in Europe at that time—but rather as a special branch of knowledge that tackles the fundamental questions confronting man’s position within the cosmos and the means available through the art of transformation, including alchemy and specifically Alchemical Hermeticism, to participate within it. Hermeticism is presented here as the hermeneutic art of deriving the essence of things by internalizing or sublimating symbols, ideas, or images via the operator’s consciousness to the universal ground of the spiritus, where they can effect change through the conjunction of the micro and macro worlds. Also, it is framed as a path of initiation leading toward a gnosis or inner ladder of transcendence so as to realize a veritable integration with the divine (metaphysical sources), accessible through portals of consciousness at the root or principle of being, the numen.
Daffi defines Hermeticism according to its alchemical variant as a symbolic science that penetrates the ideographic forms of the universe and parallels modern mathematical formulations that seek to decode the structure of the universe and reveal its occult laws, which, in his words, represent the highest expression of absolute truths that the human mind has imagined. Knowledge of applying these hermeneutic tools is crucial for the Hermeticist to fully integrate the disparate components of his tetradic being under the auspices of consciousness. Daffi affirms: "The tetradic principle, like all symbols, has innumerable meanings. Here are but two:
• quaternary structure of the body and the physical world to which
is added purity, subtle intuition of justice, truth, and goodness
emanating from a higher plane;
• integration of the four principles that make up the human body
within the possibilities of the five senses with the complex of subtle
powers of extra-normal intuition."
In addition he asserts, "If gnosis (alchemical Hermeticism) can be considered a science, synthesis, and mother of an exact or particular science, then it should generate a method that governs the intellectual penetration (Mercury-Hermes) that gifts the flash of genius to . . . those who are sensitive to the perception of the mysterious tendencies of the universe or the world; and, captured by the invisible self-supporting radar, granting the right direction to those currents of renewal and human transformation."
For the Hermeticist, the de-codification of life’s mysteries by the subsequent grounding of symbolic representations—signs, images, ideas—in their epistemological essence (numen) is correlative to developing their mercurial capacities. The Hermeticist wrestles with philosophical investigations not merely as an intellectual exercise but as part of a Hermetic semiosis. Hermetic semiosis* is rooted in an epistemology that privileges thought-by-images, mnemonics, and silence. Thought begins with imagery and indeed even in its most reflective and refined states, thinking is done in and through images. Thus, the centrality of visualization in the Hermetic epistemology. The use of strange, primordial images rather than the refined classical ones is a sign of direction; that is, the decomposition of signs, ideas, or images is conducted in order to visualize its primitive originary essence and to experience the auscultation of the originary silence that engulfs it. The purpose of Hermetic semiosis is to internalize and sublimate meanings and significations that germinate into vectors of light to illuminate their conscious filament. The initiate is seen as a filament of light within a vast spectrum of light that relativizes in the human form as consciousness of the Self. Hence for the Hermeticist, knowledge of one’s singular place in this world and within this cosmos of forces is central to pursuing philosophical investigations. It includes understanding the underlying structure of the world, the macro-micro interconnectivity resonating as Harmonia Mundi, the seven forms of intelligence or principles of light, and the application of the triadic law of creation within the manifestation of the quaternary.
In a somewhat more direct and lapidary manner, these teachings were made public by a circle of Hermetic aspirants known as the "Corpo dei Pari" (Corps of Peers) and led by Giammaria, who in the late 1960s posted manifestos on the walls around the city of Genoa and the Italian Riviera, declaring: "From the UNIVERSE to the Microcosm, Man, understood as Adam Kadmon, or Cosmic Man, comprises all the forces within the universe. On this basis, the binary of opposites: FIXED and MOBILE, POSITIVE and NEGATIVE are understood as the existential themes facing man, which include the elemental, intellectual, and archetypal qualities commonly represented by the three great ‘Eonic numbers’: the FOUR, the SEVEN and the TWELVE."
Incantation of the Corpo dei Pari
SEVEN from TWELVE,
ONE into FOUR,
vanquished, dispersed, and abandoned . . .
their Way is not of
the Consecrated!
for
they have
conquered their Investiture,
no longer Mystes,
are rendered Adepts.
With the sublimation and subsequent cultivation of Mercury there develops the fluid apperception of Hermetic insights by strengthening the analogies existing between Man, characterized as a Microcosm and the World, understood as the Macrocosm, and the ensuing relationship is like that which occurs with the internalization of a mandala. "How from the darkness of the Primordial Matrix of Potential Creation emerges Thoughts, Archetypes of the world, the Logos of the Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophy, passed on as a gift to Christianity with the Gospel of JOHN, which from the darkness of the mind in silence emerges suddenly, arcane, often paradoxical and irrational, the solution to a problem that has tormented us for a long time, the intuition of the right approach to guide research, the precise formula of a clause, of a legal act."
WHAT IS MAGIC FOR THOSE WHO CULTIVATE IT?
Following this is an article extracted from the journal Scienze del Mistero, the revelatory content of which constitutes a rare gem and unexpected find among Daffi’s publications, many of which are still unknown. The journal, although short-lived, published only thirteen issues between 1946 and 1947 and was noted, above all, for its editor, the renowned adventurer and scholar of Tibetan and Asiatic studies, Dr. Giuseppe Tucci. It begins with the most basic definition of true magic as applied intelligence in its seven forms of illumination and manifestation, based on the cultivation of latent powers through the application of occult laws that regulate reality in its tetradic dimensions. Daffi offers a lucid account of the Ars Magia as evinced in the tradition of Marsilio Ficino, Giordano Bruno, and especially that of his mentor Giuliano Kremmerz and the magic of the Fraternity of Myriam.
DOCTRINE OF INITIATION AND NEO-BUDDHISM
Published just months after the end of the war in 1945, from one of the first issues of the Kremmerzian-inspired journal Iniziazione, the "Doctrine of Initiation and Neo-Buddhism" in chapter 5 skillfully contrasts the perennial Western tradition of magical Hermeticism with the vagaries of neo-Buddhism. Daffi takes a strong stand and makes a vigorous case for Westerners to follow a path of initiation based on Occidental inner traditions and to shun the seduction and appeals of alienating forms of Eastern spirituality.
COMMENTARY ON "THE MIRROR OF THE VIRGINS"
This essay is a masterful exegesis on the magnetic nature of Eros set in the background of the classic Persian novel A Thousand and One Nights. Daffi digresses on the esoteric teachings of integrity and human dignity underlying the ethical imperatives of this infamous story. Eros is explained as a magnetic power circuit of polarized forces, referred to as fluids ( −) within the occult selves—that is, as a function of the heightened polar-magnetic forces aroused and cultivated by the astral complementarity embodied by the male and female principles within the respective personalities of the eroticized couple. Although engendered initially in an unconscious state between the beloved, over time and with art, Eros manifests in all four bodies—most notably through percolating currents of strong desires for union between the couple.
The lesson of Narcissus jumps to mind with the teaching on illusions underlying perceived imagery: "When we speak of the mirror, we must understand the incapacity, the impotence of those who look at it to see themselves without mediation. The reflected image is not free in itself, but repeats the gestures of those who mirror themselves. The reflected image expresses, therefore, the mirror, the dialectic of knowledge, the continuous recirculation of the vision in remembering that it, in and of itself, does not exist, instead, only the operator exists . . . such is the case that the protagonists here as with the humans in daily life . . . are those who look at the mirror, but do not even remotely envision that in reality there exists another or true self (numen), independent of the reflected image."
He continues, "The alchemical-Hermetic operator must not create distinctions, let alone fallacious divisions, such as to hasten the alienation between man and his world, being in fact, extraneous external events, estranged to those alienated and who witness life as a helpless sleeper—no longer such, but an expression of their interior self, a macrocosmic reflection of their microcosm. A fortiori they will continue the extraction of this ‘secret’ with pertinacity, discovering there and more subtly the symbolism of the world in themself."
When there is harmonic alliance the presence of the numen can be sensed through indirect channels like a recollection or an associated image or as with the case of Giammaria and Auri through the postmortem voice of Marco Daffi.